Lawsuit threatened in Hood County over clerk’s refusal to issue marriage license

I was beginning to think that none of Texas’ 254 County Clerks were going to attempt to martyr themselves in the name of their “religious freedom” to not issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. I shouldn’t have worried.

Attorneys for a same-sex couple are preparing to sue Hood County Clerk Katie Lang after the couple was unable to obtain a marriage license.

Two Austin attorneys representing Jim Cato and Joe Stapleton, who have been together for 27 years, sent a letter to Lang on Thursday demanding that her office issue the couple a marriage license by the end of the business day or risk being sued in federal court Monday morning.

As of Thursday evening, the couple was unable to obtain a marriage license from the county, so attorney Jan Soifer confirmed that they would move forward with filing suit.

[…]

Citing her religious beliefs, Lang initially said her office would not grant same-sex marriage licenses.

She later backtracked, saying that she would “personally refrain” from issuing licenses but that other members of her staff would grant the licenses once “the appropriate forms have been printed and supplied to my office,” Lang wrote in a statement posted to the county website.

But obtaining those forms — the county clerk’s office told The Dallas Morning News — could take three weeks.

Pointing to revised forms available on the Department of State Health Services’ website, Soifer and attorney Austin Kaplan wrote that Lang had “absolutely no valid reason” to delay issuing marriage licenses.

“Our clients have been waiting for 27 years to marry, they have a constitutional right to obtain a marriage license in Hood County, where they reside, and there is no valid reason for them to have to wait ‘at least another three weeks’,” the attorneys wrote.

“Three weeks” to obtain those forms is the definition of BS. Here’s the latest survey of Texas’ counties, via Glen Maxey on Facebook at 9 PM on July 1:

So our friends at “Texans for Marriage” led by my great friend Nick Hudson give the Rainbow Report tonight:

Here’s where we are at end of day Wednesday:

235 Texas Counties — 93% — are either issuing marriage licenses already or are planning to issue licenses soon
At least 175 Texas Counties — 69% — said they were issuing marriage licenses by today
60 counties — 24% — say they are not currently issuing marriage licenses but plan to soon (this number may be lower IF the clerks in these counties have already started issuing marriage licenses. A full pass has not been made on the counties in this category in 24 hours.)
10 Counties unknown because nobody is answering the telephone

One of those 175 counties in that report was Hood. That was because Hood County Clerk Katie Lang had appeared to concede the fight. She hadn’t.

When last we heard Hood County Clerk Katie Lang wasn’t going to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples — because, she wrote, of “the religious doctrines to which I adhere” — but her staff would. Turns out, not so much: The clerk’s office now says it will take three weeks to get the proper paperwork. A woman named Virginia in the clerk’s office says only, “We don’t have the forms.”

As a result, two attorneys from Austin are on their way to Granbury at this very moment. They want just one thing: for the clerk’s office to issue a marriage license for their clients, Jim Cato and Joe Stapleton, who have been waiting to marry for 27 years. If they do not get one, says attorney Jan Soifer, she and attorney Austin Kaplan will sue the Hood County Clerk’s office first thing Monday morning.

“After [Lang] changed her tune Tuesday, my clients gave her a day and waited till this morning to get their license,” says Soifer. “They said, ‘No, no, no, it will take three weeks.’ They said, ‘We’re not ready to do it, we don’t have the forms ready.’ We sent them the link to the website with the form they are supposed to use. It’s posted. It’s available to them. We know 205 other counties in Texas have already been issuing them.”

But not Hood County.

Indeed. I suppose Lang could fold again, but I suspect this one is going to go to court. At this point, the professional grievance holders have arrived, and the crowds have been whipped up. That they have no legal led to stand on isn’t going to stop them. Someone is going to need to be smacked down, and the first someone in line for that is Katie Lang. As a wise man once said, hold on to your butts.

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